Occasion HandbookWeddings 18 examples

1st, 25th and 50th Anniversary Wishes

The years that get a party. Each has a different job: the first is encouragement, the twenty-fifth is celebration, the fiftieth is a tribute.

First anniversary

Traditionally paper. The job is encouragement rather than tribute.

  1. 1 One year down. Congratulations — the first is the one nobody warns you about.
    Tone WarmLength Short
  2. 2 Happy first anniversary to you both. Wishing you many more.
    Tone PlainLength Very short
  3. 3 A year of marriage and you still like each other. Excellent work.
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  4. 4 Happy first anniversary. The photographs are still on our fridge.
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Silver — twenty-fifth

  1. 5 Twenty-five years. Congratulations to you both, and thank you for all the meals in between.
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  2. 6 With warmest congratulations on your silver wedding anniversary.
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  3. 7 A quarter of a century. Your children are proof it worked.
    Tone WarmLength Very short
  4. 8 Congratulations on twenty-five years. Half the people at your wedding are still talking about it.
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Golden — fiftieth

This is closer to a tribute than a greeting. Say something about the marriage itself.

  1. 9 Fifty years. That is not luck and it is not an accident — it is fifty years of choosing it.
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  2. 10 With love and admiration on your golden wedding anniversary.
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  3. 11 Congratulations on fifty years. You two are the reason several of us are still married.
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  4. 12 Fifty years, four children and eleven grandchildren. Congratulations on all of it.
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Other years worth marking

  1. 13 Tenth: the one couples usually mark themselves. "Ten years. Congratulations to you both."
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  2. 14 Thirtieth and fortieth: often quiet, and a card is unexpected and welcome.
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  3. 15 Sixtieth and beyond: rarer than ever. Say so — "sixty years is extraordinary and we wanted to say it."
    Tone WarmLength Short

If one of them has died

The date still arrives. Almost nobody marks it, and the widow or widower notices.

  1. 16 Thinking of you today. I know what date it is.
    Tone WarmLength Very short
  2. 17 It would have been fifty-two years. I remember, and I remember him.
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  3. 18 Today of all days, thinking of you.
    Tone WarmLength Very short

Questions people actually ask

What do you write in a 50th anniversary card?

Say something about the marriage rather than the day. A golden anniversary card is closer to a tribute than a greeting, and naming what the fifty years produced is what makes it land.

What is the traditional gift for each anniversary?

Paper for the first, silver for the twenty-fifth, gold for the fiftieth. They are a useful prompt for a gift and a weak basis for a message.